Ticketmaster Are Thieving Bastards
The other day I bought a single ticket to Taylor Swift at the Prudential in May. Before Ticketmaster charges: $29.50. After Ticketmaster charges: $44.00. I am sure this is not something any regular concert goer isn’t aware of but the charges are out of control. In the middle of a depression Ticketmaster is the only game in town, they charge ridiculous handling fees, they don’t return the handling fee if the concert is cancelled and if it is a big show it is nearly impossible to get a ticket.
Earlier this year Leonard Cohen at the Bowery and Bruce Springsteen at Izod were INSTANTANEOUS sell outs. Nobody got a chance to buy a ticket. And not merely instantaneously but DAYS BEFORE, tickets flooded the secondary (ticket brokerage) market.
Obviously, some people are stealing the tickets. They must have a real fancy hacking systems to get into TM’s database, right? Either that or TM are doing the stealing.
Ticket broker Chuck Lombardo sued TM for break of contract last week in LA. According to Rolling Stone:: “Chuck Lombardo alleges that the concert giant agreed to pay his company Elite Entertainment to scalp tickers…” and reneged. Further. “Ticketmaster and its subsidiary Frontline have secretly profitted from scalping”.
Innocent till, etc., but subsequently TM added their own (let’s call a spade a bloody hammer) ticket scalping subsidiary Ticketsnow.com.
Repulsive stuff and just a peak into the dark side of capitalism.
